In my right pocket on most days, I am carrying a knife. It isn’t a particularly lethal blade even though its carbon steel can be honed enough to shave the hairs from your arm clean as a babies bottom. The craftsmanship is what you would expect from a mass produced circa 1975 hardware store pocket [...]
One Beautiful Day
There’s something special about Spring. It’s so special in fact, that I frequently capitalize the word out of sheer joy. Dogwood trees in bloom, bass falling in love, and carpenter bees trying to duke it out for who knows what. On a small dirt path that was once a road for jeeps and the like, [...]
The Best Advice
“One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am-a reluctant enthusiast… a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. [...]
Fly Fishing and the Teenage Adrenaline Junkie
My teenage daughter, Kerri, likes to fish. Once a year, we catch a few crappie on spinning gear and she’s happy. Especially if I bring along her favorite junk food. However, she LOVES big, scary roller coasters. Or anything that sends her equilibrium for a loop – quite literally. Last summer, I suggested a trip [...]
Fly Tying Tutorial : Nehil’s Foam Stone Fly
A few years ago I saw a foam wing salmon fly nymph pattern that was killer looking and very popular on the Yellowstone River in Montana. The fly was called “Real Black Stone” if I remember, but I never found the pattern available commercially and never saw a recipe or a tutorial. The fly was [...]
Winter Redfish on the Fly, Charleston, SC
Here in the east, it’s been a mild winter, which has given anglers even more opportunities for cold-weather fishing. At the beginning of the month, I got a couple of days off from guiding for trout and working the shop here at Curtis Wright Outfitters in Asheville, NC and headed down to Charleston, SC, to [...]
Getting Dirty
If I had to think about the one style of nymph that’s caught more large fish than any other it would have to be… Well, being completely honest it’s technically not a “nymph”, it’s an annelid. Yes the mighty worm! From the simple San Juan to the heavily weighted pig sticker they simply get munched [...]
Fine Tune Your Fly Fishing
There was a time when I’d throw nothing more than a wader bag, a couple of rods, a hat and some peanut butter into the back seat and head for the trout streams. There was never any research or planning – not in my pre-trip rituals or in the actual fishing. I’d walk the river, [...]
Stay Out Of The No-Wake Zone
Sometimes a quiet delicate presentation just doesn’t get the job done. Fly by Nick Granato
Walker Camp and the Power of Place
I don’t think this place would classify as a river. During times of extreme rain it is little more than a high running creek. The water most days is an endless series of pools accentuated by small rushes of channeled white water. Its life is narrow and thin as it finds its beginnings atop the [...]
Twitter
